Tuesday, September 26, 2017

When U.S. District Judge Denise Cote gave him an opportunity to make a statement, Weiner sounded remorseful: “I was a very sick man for a very long time,” Weiner said, his voice breaking as he read from a written statement that made no excuses for the pain he caused. “I stand before you because I victimized a young person who deserved better.” He hoped that a sentence in the community rather than behind bars would be good for his son, Jordan, whom he called his “salvation,” as well as others who may be struggling and needing counsel for the same ills that destroyed him.

The federal government wanted between 21 and 27 months. Cote chose the low end of that recommendation.

When Cote imposed her sentence, Weiner’s head fell and he placed his left hand over his head. The courtroom cleared quickly, and several reporters ran outside to recover their electronic devices and report the news. The usual throng of television crews and cameras swarmed the outside of the federal courthouse on Worth Street, awaiting the defendant’s exit.

Following the death of state Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz (D-Flushing), the Queens Democratic Party has nominated David Rosenthal, a Kew Gardens resident.

Rosenthal has worked as district director for Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest) and his nomination came with high praise from the Queens Democratic Party chairman, U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights).

Monday, September 25, 2017

Folks, this blog has been following politics and those running for office for a long time. We (and the internet) also have a LONG memory. So it really gives us the jollies when we get to call out the tweeders for their hypocrisy.

A July 31 Crowley for NYC press release announcing Gov. Cuomo’s endorsement of the incumbent went even further, saying Holden has a “record of taking strong anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ and conservative stances.” When pressed for examples of those stances, Crowley simply cited his quarterly production of the Juniper Park Civic Association’s magazine, which sometimes features right-wing commentary.

After thorough search of the Juniper Park Civic Association's website, which features the articles from the magazine, we found no "anti-woman" commentary. Unless you consider this editorial about an unqualified female firefighter (which was written by a woman) to be anti-woman. Regardless, Holden didn't write it and we could find nothing he authored for the magazine that addressed women's issues in a negative light.

Other alleged irregularities in this year's election cycle in Queens involved the cousin of the chair of the Queens Democratic County Committee. Progress Queens has received credible information from various sources that representatives of the committee to reelect Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley (D-Maspeth) acted to intimidate the campaign volunteers of Councilmember Crowley's primary challenger, Robert Holden, sometimes by invoking violent language. One Holden campaign volunteer said that she was yelled at and disparaged by representatives of Councilmember Crowley's campaign, including by Councilmember Crowley and her son, Owen O'Hara. In one instance, the source said that Mr. O'Hara told the Holden campaign volunteer to perform a sex act on him and made a corresponding rude sexual gesture by grabbing his loins, according to information received by Progress Queens.

Wow, great parenting job there, Liz! You must be so proud.

Similar accusations of intimidation were also made by a second Holden campaign volunteer, revealing a possible pattern. The second Holden campaign volunteer informed Progress Queens that she was similarly yelled at when she was trying to inform voters about Councilmember Crowley's record and policy positions, and, in response, one male Crowley campaign representative came up to the second Holden campaign volunteer and threatened to silence her by shoving his penis into her mouth. Both Holden campaign volunteers told Progress Queens that they were called "white trash" by Councilmember Crowley herself or by other Crowley campaign representatives. Other forms of possible misconduct by the Crowley campaign including the spreading or mailing of false information about Mr. Holden ; engaging in ageism ; and allegations that Councilmember Crowley used her official capacity as an elected official to gain entry into private apartment buildings to distribute campaign literature, opportunities that were denied to Mr. Holden's campaign. For this report, Councilmember Crowley did not answer an interview request.

In a wide-ranging interview with Progress Queens, Mr. Holden questioned the personal character of Councilmember Crowley over the allegations of misconduct by her and her campaign representatives, saying, in part, that, "It's one thing to give out literature, but it's another thing to be harassing," he said, referring to the treatment his campaign volunteers received from the Crowley campaign. Of the sexually-violent use of language against his campaign volunteers, Mr. Holden said, "It's disgraceful."

So instead of either denying these things happened or apologizing and saying it would never happen again, Crowley decided to say nothing. It's hard to fathom how the Democratic, Working Families and Women's Equality Parties' candidate tolerates threats of sexual violence against women, but then again she also featured her sibling who was convicted of sexual assault in her "family values" mailers to Dem primary voters...

On September 21, 2017, video producer Robert LoScalzo attended a press conference of Sunrise Cooperative, a group of Willets Point automotive businesses, held at the Bronx site where they intended to relocate. They announced their pending eviction from the Bronx site, and requested that Mayor Bill de Blasio intervene. LoScalzo published this brief video synopsis. (c) 2017 LoScalzo Media Design LLC.

Police say 68-year-old landlord Mohinder Singh was in the basement of the home and didn’t make it out alive. When the more than 60 firefighters got the blaze under control, they found him lifeless inside.

Roughly nine others who live in three-story multi-family home woke up to thick smoke. They ran out in pajamas, rushing to safety.

According to DOB records, this house is not a "multi-family" but a 2 family. That's also a cellar and not a basement. No one should have been sleeping in the cellar.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

If it seems like traffic in New York City might be a bit worse than before, there may be an unexpected factor: city workers.

New York City’s sprawling municipal work force is driving more than it used to, city statistics reveal. City vehicles logged 102 million miles on the road in the last fiscal year, which ended in June, 25 percent more miles than in 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first year in office.

Accidents are also up: Workers driving city-owned cars for the Department of Buildings were involved in 98 crashes last fiscal year, an increase from 22 crashes four years ago. Department of Correction vehicles were involved in 116 crashes, nearly double the number four years ago. The Department of Transportation and Parks Department fared no better.

The city’s fleet — everything from take-home cars to garbage trucks — now exceeds 30,000 vehicles, 10 percent larger than when Mr. de Blasio took office.

Allegations that New York City Councilmembers Elizabeth Crowley (D-Maspeth) and Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) were campaigning on the day before the September Democratic Party primary on school property have been referred to the Office of Special Investigations of the New York City Department of Education. Information of the referral was provided to Progress Queens by a source. According to Chancellor's Regulation D-130, "no candidate for public office, including an elected official seeking reelection, may visit any Department of Education school building during the 60 calendar days prior to a primary and/or election," except in accordance with some exceptions.

In particular, Chancellor's Regulation D-130 generally prohibits the use of school property for electioneering work during after-school hours. In a prior report, Progress Queens published a photograph showing Councilmember Van Bramer standing next to Councilmember Crowley, who was hiding behind a gentleman. The officials were standing on the playground of Queens P.S. 229. According to information received by Progress Queens, the photograph of Councilmembers Crowley and Van Bramer was taken after children were let out of class on Monday, 11 September. The only exceptions to the general prohibition of after-school use of school property for electioneering work would be for candidate forums, provided, however, that all candidates would have been invited for the forum, or if public officials were engaged in use of public school property in a manner that was directly related to their official public duties and responsibilities.

After publication of the prior report by Progress Queens, a representative of Councilmember Crowley's committee to reelect declined an opportunity to issue a statement to Progress Queens in response to the prior report. Councilmember Van Bramer has not answered prior requests for interviews, and he did not immediately answer a request for comment for this report.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

On Thursday night, CBS2 shared a story about drivers in Queens who felt they were being forced into a ticket trap, with police standing by to write them up for blocking the box.

In the 24 hours since, more drivers have come forward with the same complaint. So CBS2’s Jessica Layton demanded answers from the NYPD.

The corner was empty of the NYPD traffic enforcement officers Friday, which came as a welcome sign for drivers like Angela Taveras, who said for weeks the agents have been pouncing on people who get caught in the chaotic intersection while doing nothing to help traffic move along.

Friday, September 22, 2017

A deadly fall brought work at the site of the Manhattan West development to a standstill after two men tumbled out of a bucket lift to the ground below.

Video shows the moments after the accident at the 62-story mixed-use building going up at 9th Avenue and 33rd street.

EMS crews rushed one victim to the hospital with head and body trauma. The other was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victims were both 45 years old. Witnesses say both men appeared to be wearing safety harnesses but may not have had them secured.

It happened just hours after another fatal fall in Lower Manhattan Thursday morning. Police say Juan Chonillo fell through an open hole and dropped 27 stories to his death at a construction site on Maiden Lane. According to relatives, the 43-year-old father of six was supporting family in Ecuador.

More than half of the city’s 1.1 million public school students attend overcrowded schools, according to a new report from the watchdog group Class Size Matters.

Despite the Department of Education’s addition of more seats and new buildings, many families feel the situation is getting worse as existing seats are being chipped away due to lost leases, schools being co-located together, or the elimination of annexes, mini-buildings and trailers housing temporary classrooms, according to the report released Thursday.

As trailers housing temporary classrooms — with nearly 8,000 seats — are expected to be phased out entirely, it may further strain school buildings, the report warns.

Roughly 575,000 students attended schools in 2015-2016 that were at or above 100 percent capacity, the report said, citing Department of Education enrollment data.

School Construction Authority officials on Monday said they have the money ready to alleviate overcrowding in overutilized school districts, such as SD 24 in southwest and western Queens, but a lack of available space remains their main obstacle.

“The hardest job of the SCA is to try and find real estate,” Michael Mirisola, director of External Affairs at the SCA, told members of the Borough Board during the annual update of the agency’s five-year capital plan. “We have brokers in every borough, in every district. We are constantly doing tests to see if a site will hold a school. We go through that exercise many times during the week and some of them just don’t pass muster.”

School District 24 has consistently been one of the most overcrowded in the city — as of February of this year, its average school utilization rate was 115 percent.
Mirisola said the SCA is always open to tips on available space to fit a school, yet many suggested sites are ultimately deemed unfit for an educational facility.

“Generally, the No. 1 reason is size,” he said. “If it’s a funded need and we don’t have a project, it’s because we’re looking for a location.”

Lots suitable for a new school site must be 20,000 square feet, the SCA official said, in addition to “other specifications and other requirements.”

In Queens, faith in Government institutions was revealed to be severely lacking after New York City Council candidate Paul Graziano filed a civil petition in New York State Supreme Court for Queens County, alleging criminality, such as fraud and forgery, in the ballot petitioning process carried out by incumbent Councilmember Paul Vallone (D-Bayside). On the Queens Crap blog, which attracts some of Queens most formidable civic-minded activists, some of the comments posted by readers to news of the court filing expressed concern that the justices of the Queens County court system would not be able to independently oversee the Court case. To some Government reform activists in Queens, the Graziano Court petition served as a symbolic Rorschach test, providing insight into the public's lack of faith in the Queens County court system. Many comments on the Queens Crap post raised questions about the "allegiance" that justices in the Queens County court system owed to leaders of the Queens Democratic County Committee, expressed concern that Mr. Graziano would not be able to receive a "fair hearing," and invoked the resignation that the "the [Queens] Machine will work to stop this at all costs."

Concerns about possible interference by the Queens Democratic County Committee were rooted in the fact that the County committee supports the reelection of incumbents as a way to earn political allegiance and to create a lockstep on power and authority over local elected officials. The role of money in politics is also a factor, because the County committee can marshal resources to support the reelection of incumbents, leaving primary challengers at a distinct financial disadvantage. Indeed, as reported by Progress Queens, Mr. Graziano ultimately discontinued his Court petition due to the high anticipated costs of having to litigate his case, reaffirming the belief to some Government reform activists that the role of money in politics even extends to being able to successfully petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The allegations made by the Graziano campaign against the Vallone campaign heightened new fears about the integrity of the voting process in Queens. In the 2016 election cycle, it was revealed that the New York City Board of Elections purged large numbers of voters without cause, triggering the filing of a Federal civil rights complaint in Brooklyn Federal Court that was later joined by both the U.S. Attorney's Office, headed at that time then by Mr. Capers, and by the office of the State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D-New York). To some Government reform activists, it has appeared that Queens voters have been disenfranchised for two years in a row, first, in 2016, when some voters were purged from the rolls, and, second, this year, when Federal prosecutors did nothing to investigate the allegations of criminality in the Graziano petition against the Vallone campaign, thereby allowing voters to cast their ballots for an incumbent, who may later be investigated for wrong-doing, although there is no indication that Federal prosecutors are presently conducting any such investigation. The press office of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn did not answer advance questions submitted by Progress Queens for this report.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Compounding the unknowns in the face of rapidly-changing circumstances facing the two, new Acting U.S. Attorneys in New York City are lingering questions about why some political corruption scandals are investigated, but not all. As reported in recent years by Progress Queens, questions have largely remained unanswered about funding received by a nonprofit group affiliated with New York State Senator José Peralta ; about reportedly preferential treatment showed to a campaign consulting company by the New York Democratic Senate Campaign Committee ; and with new allegations that politically-connected lawyers were earning enormous profits from, or wielding considerable influence as a result of, their connections to the Queens Democratic County Committee. The 2017 Municipal election cycle has raised new questions about the role of money in local politics and about public ethics, but there has been no apparent response from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, headed by Acting U.S. Attorney Rohde, who has jurisdiction over Queens.

Thousands of union workers rallied in both Downtown Brooklyn and Foley Square in Lower Manhattan in Monday, in support of the striking Spectrum cable workers.

Cuomo and de Blasio are offering fiery rhetoric.

“It’s about respect and fairness,” Cuomo said.

But the residents and businesses on Austin Street in Forest Hills, Queens want fairness and respect too. It is one of many neighborhoods hit by massive outages in their cable, internet and phone services when the workers walked off the job on March 28.

There have been about 100 attacks on the fiber optics system – acts of vandalism that have left thousands and thousands inconvenienced since the strike began.

“I assume there’s some kind of money involved,” said Bareburger manager Adam Bariando. “As a person who campaigned talking about the people; the working class, I would expect him to side with us.”

The city has been “delinquent” in its discussions with Community Board 7 on the future of the troubled Willets Point development, according to the board’s First Vice Chairman Chuck Apelian. And at Monday night’s quarterly meeting with the project’s stakeholders, Apelian put the city and developers on notice.

“I want to be very clear,” Apelian said. “We expect to be involved.”

The future of Willets Point has been uncertain since a June ruling by the Court of Appeals halted a major part of the proposed development, a mega mall known as Willets West, because it was planned for a parcel of land connected to nearby Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Building the mall on public parkland would require approval from the state legislature, the court said.

And while Willets West was only part of a larger development plan that included hundreds of affordable housing units and environmental remediation, the developers maintained that the mall was the “economic engine” that would make the project possible. Now, the developers and city are deciding whether to pursue a long campaign for state approval or make changes to their plan. But changes to the project could concern Community Board 7, which approved the most recent proposal in 2013.

“If the original concept has been now modified, that’s not what this board voted on,” CB 7 Chairman Eugene Kelty said on Monday.

Nate Bliss, of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said that, regardless, the city plans on being a partner with the community on the process. Apelian expressed hope that this was true. If the parkland was not alienated by the state legislature and Willets West was abandoned, he expects the project could change “dramatically.”

Kavanagh won the Democratic nomination to succeed the resigning Squadron by virtue of an obscure, backroom process. He defeated Newell, a Democratic district leader, despite the latter's capturing a majority of the vote Sunday of the Manhattan county committee—the panel of party insiders charged with handpicking the candidate.

The reason: one of Kavanagh's 32 supporters was Kings County Democratic Committee Chairman Frank Seddio. Party bylaws empowered Seddio to back the candidate of his choosing without a vote of the county committee that represents his borough's portion of the Senate district. Seddio's endorsement carried the weight of the Brooklyn contingent as if it had voted unanimously.

Consider the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, created by the 1986 tax reform. This $9 billion credit masquerades as an antipoverty program, but it mainly subsidizes developers, investors and the financial industry.

To stimulate low-income housing construction, the federal government allots a share of tax credits to the states, which dole them out to selected developers. The credits cover part of the construction costs of multifamily housing projects. The developers must cap rents for a share of the units, so the benefits of the tax credit are meant to flow to tenants in the form of lower rents. Yet the developers usually sell the credits to banks and investors, often using syndication companies as intermediaries. The investors, developers and middlemen—not poor families—end up grabbing most of the benefits.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Swarming wasps stung several Kew Gardens residents after city workers cut down a tree housing their nest — with city officials telling concerned locals they won't remove the ornery insects because they are "an important part of nature."

The tree, on Kew Gardens Road near 82nd Road near P.S. 99, was removed by the Parks Department on Sept. 7 "due to poor health," after a resident asked the agency to inspect it, the department said.

The nest was left in the stump, with someone placing a traffic cone there with a sign reading, "Danger Bees Ahead.”

The insects, which experts said are yellow jackets, have become aggressive and started attacking passersby, residents said.

The NYPD referred DNAinfo New York to a city website titled "Bees or Wasps Complaint," which noted that the city "does not accept requests to eliminate bees or wasps from residential, commercial, or public property."

Meghan Lalor, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department, confirmed that regulation and noted that "these creatures are an important part of nature, so the City will not destroy them."

While phases one and two are clearly defined and underway, there is a potential third phase in the works. Governor Andrew Cuomo has stated publicly on several occasions his desire for an AirTrain connecting the airport with the 7 subway stop and Long Island Railroad at Willets Point.

[Lysa C.] Scully said there are a number of factors at work with such a project, and all of them are currently being analyzed. Those findings and recommendations could be before the Port Authority board by the end of the year.

“There are a number of factors, if they all come to the right agreement point, that would provide a terrific opportunity,” she said. “There’s a thought about a consolidated rental car facility there and employee parking, things that today are very complicated because we’re so landlocked and we’re very respectful to the community.”

Sunday, September 17, 2017

The Chronicle’s Michael Gannon has been investigating illegal parking by city employees — or people passing themselves off as such — for about a year, mostly on the congested streets around Borough Hall in Kew Gardens and neighboring Briarwood.

On Gannon’s last surveys of the area, conducted over the last week, he still found unticketed cars with placards parked illegally: alleged cops in No Standing zones and blocking fire hydrants, for example. Not much improvement there. But what he did not see were the vests, patches and caps that had been used as substitutes. So there’s been a change, but more needs to be done. City employees have enough privileges as it is.

Saturday, September 16, 2017

The city issued a partial vacate order at President Donald Trump’s boyhood home, which has recently been listed on Airbnb, after the owners illegally converted the basement into an apartment, city records show.

The five-bedroom, Tudor-style house, at 85-15 Wareham Place in the affluent Jamaica Estates neighborhood, where Trump lived until he was 4, was sold at an auction in January for $2.14 million. In August, the new owners listed it on Airbnb with a price tag of $725 per night.

But shortly after that, the city received complaints from Community Board 8 and via 311 about the illegal conversion conducted in the basement, officials said.

The basement is not part of the Airbnb listing which advertises the other portions of the house, according to Airbnb.

CB8 District Manager Marie Adam-Ovide said Friday that the board received a number of phone calls and emails with complaints that there are people illegally living in the basement.

“Once we receive complaints, we have to act,” she said.

CB8 then notified the Department of Buildings, which referred the case to the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement investigating illegal conversions.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis and Democratic incumbent Bill de Blasio appear to have common ground on at least one issue — a proposed change to state law that would allow the city to streamline the process it uses to design and build projects.

Malliotakis, a state assemblywoman from Staten Island, speaking at a news conference in her home borough Thursday, outlined a series of proposals she said would save the city money and speed up long delayed infrastructure projects. The proposals are included in state legislation she co-sponsored this year, that failed to get approved by the legislature.

Under current law, the design phase and the construction phase of projects are contracted separately, which Malliotakis said had led to widespread delays and cost overruns that she argued could be prevented if contractors collaborated at the inception of a project.

“Current state law mandates a less efficient approach,” Malliotakis said.

To highlight the waste, she held her news conference in front of a proposed new city animal shelter that has yet to be completed five years after officials broke ground on the project. The new shelter was initially slated to cost $3.1 million, but has since increased to $8.2 million, Malliotakis said.

Residents of Bellerose’s Parkwood Estates condominium complex and members of the organization Politics Reborn turned out on Friday to protest city property taxes on condos and co-ops in front of Assemblyman David Weprin’s (D-Fresh Meadows) office.

The protesters accused the assemblyman and city of lagging on a bill aimed at capping co-op and condo assessments.

“He’s the one dragging his feet,” Alice Christy, a Parkwood Estates resident and member of Politics Reborn, said of Weprin.

Christy noted that Weprin is one of the sponsors of bill A00354A, which would cap co-op and condo assessments at 8 percent in any one year and 30 percent in any five years. The bill’s author is Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside). It is identical to a bill in the state Senate sponsored by state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing).

“[The bill] just languishes there,” said Christy.

She added that 30 percent is still a big increase, “but it’s better than what we would have. Our community is middle-middle class. We can’t afford homes in the area, yet we have too much money for affordable housing. We need this to pass. The city commissioner of finance is just kicking this down the road. I’m not giving up. I’m a tiger.”

The condominium has a large senior population. Christy, who is a senior, said that with property taxes rising, her fees have risen as well. She added that the funds seniors receive from the city’s STAR program have not increased.

Christy and fellow organizers at Friday’s protest went door to door, persuading residents of the condominium to sign more than 250 letters urging Weprin to push the legislation.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Rather than spend several hundred million dollars to build a light-rail system which could take a decade or more, why not ask the LIRR to resume service on this corridor? It could run a two-car scoot service reconnecting Long Island City, Glendale and Middle Village with other communities including Richmond Hill and other intermediate stops to Jamaica. The LIRR could use existing equipment, which would afford far earlier implementation of service than light rail. This would provide connections east bound to the J/Z and E subway lines, Kennedy Airport via AirTrain and the LIRR's Jamaica Station. Queens residents traveling to jobs and colleges in Nassau and Suffolk counties would have access to all LIRR branches except the Port Washington line. Ditto for those traveling to the Barclay Center and downtown Brooklyn via the LIRR Atlantic Avenue branch. There would also be connections westbound at either the Hunters Point or Long Island City LIRR stations to the 7 subway line.

A curious survivor, a freestanding Second Empire mansion at 489 Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill, will soon vanish, to be replaced by an apartment building. Workers were demolishing the upper floors of the already gutted house before Labor Day weekend, knocking holes in the roof and walls.

The faux-stone sheathing is gone, the stoop demolished, and windows and masonry have been removed from the side facades.

The mansard-roofed house is located just outside the Clinton Hill Historic District, and therefore unprotected. Plans call for conversion of the property into a four-story, 21-unit residential building.

This stretch of Washington Avenue, between Gates and Fulton streets, was once scattered with grand 19th century residences on generous lots. In the 20th century, many of the large homes were transformed into religious, institutional or commercial uses. Today, only a few of the houses remain, interrupted by new condos and 20th century apartments.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

The city’s decision to appoint a for-profit developer to build 1,000 high-rise apartments on public land along the Long Island City waterfront was universally panned by residents at last week’s Community Board 2 meeting.

Earlier this summer, the city—through the Economic Development Corp– announced that it had selected TF Cornerstone, the Manhattan-based real estate firm, to develop a 4.5 acre site near 44th Drive and 5th Street. The project could bring 1,000 apartments, 400,000-square-feet of commercial space, and a school for 600 students at an estimated cost of $925 million. One-quarter of the apartments will be classified as “affordable.”

Residents who spoke at CB2’s monthly meeting in Sunnyside on Thursday said there was little need for more high-end, luxury towers in Hunters Point, especially when they’d be built on city-owned land by a for-profit developer.

Dozens of Queens residents and several elected officials came together for a rally Tuesday to support a popular diner, which is currently facing a court battle with a new landlord after more than five decades in business.

The owners of The Flagship Diner, at 138-30 Queens Blvd., which has been a community fixture since 1965, said their new landlord — Jamaica-based White Rock Management — began harassing them shortly after White Rockpurchased the site for $6.125 million last year and promptly obtained permits to knock down the restaurant and replace it with a seven-story, mixed-use apartment building containing 64 units.

On Tuesday, patrons holding signs that read “No more buildings — Save the Flagship,” “Stop Unfair Landlord” and “Stop the Harassment White Rock,” said that the diner has been like a “second home.”

The diner's owners — Vincent Pupplo, Jimmy Skartsiaris and Frank Lountzis — said they were initially hoping to keep their business open until their lease expires in October 2019, and then most likely retire.

The landlord proposed to buy them out, offering each of them $100,000, but they turned it down, the owners said.

Since then, they said, the landlord sent them several "notices to cure," requiring them to address a variety of issues within five days if they wanted to avoid eviction, including accusations that their parking lot, sidewalk and back steps are in disrepair and have to be ripped up and replaced immediately.

The owners said that their lawyer was able to obtain a “Yellowstone injunction” for each notice which temporarily suspends the time period during which they must address the issues.

In July, the restaurant owners filed a lawsuit in the Queens County Supreme Court accusing the landlord of harassing them, with the first hearing scheduled for Sept. 19.

Well folks, I decided last night that I would have a drink for every incumbent that got defeated in the primary. It was a rather sober evening.

The closest race was Vallone-Graziano. Only 500 votes separated them and the final tally was Graziano 45% and Vallone 55%. I guess there are a lot of Democrats in that district who don't like fraud, yet there are even more who are ok with it.

Of the open seats, the machine-backed candidates, Francisco Moya and Adrienne Adams, both won their respective races.

Perhaps if the turnout hadn't been so abysmal things would be different, but here we are once again after the primary with the same tired old "Virginia Joe"-endorsed candidates likely to cruise to victory in November.

For the first time ever, independent voters (blanks) may vote in a party primary. The Reform Party has a line on the ballot this November, and both voters registered with the Reform Party and independent voters (registered to vote but not with any party) have the opportunity to vote in it. The ballot will look like this:

You may either choose Sal Albanese or write in a candidate of your choice.

"Wow! What a stroke of good luck I had today! After taking Pilar to the airport I took Logan on a mini-tour of the old neighborhood. One of the sites I wanted to show him was the old Steinway Mansion (of Steinway piano fame) in Astoria. We drove up to it and apparently the old house has a new owner who decided to restore the mansion to it's former glory and then some! The place was buzzing with workers and I asked if I could come in to take some pictures. I was allowed. I went through the entire house from the tiny watch tower at the top where it is said Mr. Henry E. Steinway, the original builder/owner of the mansion and also the founder of the Steinway Piano Company had a scope with which he used to check out what used to be North Beach and is now Astoria Park, all the way down to the basement! What an exhilarating adventure this was! They have kept all the original fixtures, wood, crown moldings, fireplaces, chandeliers, stairwells, etc and are skilfully restoring everything by hand. In these pictures you will see almost every room and close up details of the interior and exterior architecture and decor. The old cars and van in these images were there, exactly as they are now, when I was a kid back in the 70's. Unfortunately the place is shrouded in plastic sheeting because of the work but it is see-thru so you can see just about everything." - Gabriel Espinosa

Constantinople & Vallone steered $60,900 in campaign cash to de Blasio, but was not required to be listed as a fundraiser with the city's finance board, the Daily News reported Sunday.

The mayor said he hadn’t read it.

"I haven't seen that story specifically," he told Rita Cosby on 77 WABC when asked about the News’ story.

Under the city's campaign-finance law, city candidates must detail the names of their fund-raisers and how much they raised to the city's Campaign Finance Board.

But Constantinople & Vallone is not listed online as a de Blasio fund-raiser because the firm was on host committees for campaign-sponsored events. Hosts are not deemed intermediaries or fund-raisers if the campaign covers the event.

The money raised was listed on obscure filings with the City Clerk's Lobbying Bureau.

I read "Paul vs. Paul getting really amusing" a few days ago and couldn't believe how hypocritical these so-called "community leaders" who support Vallone were in condemning the mailers from Paul Graziano...I remember what happened four years ago with Vallone's mail pieces - they were nasty and people got really turned off, and none of those people said a peep when it happened, but whatever, they want to say their piece now, so be it.

So imagine my surprise when I got a mailer on Saturday with the letter on one side and all of these elected officials on the other. What a crock! That letter was phony - Paid for by We Support Paul Vallone! Classic Queens Democratic Machine BS."

- anonymous in Bayside

So he tricked newspapers into printing a free campaign ad?
That's pretty lame.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

It is one of law enforcement’s most expansive powers: If the authorities believe that someone has knowledge of a crime, they can — under threat of arrest — force the person to testify in court by obtaining what is known as a material witness warrant.

Unlike normal subpoenas, many, if not most, of which are issued to those directly involved in criminal proceedings, material witness warrants are typically handed out to people who are not under suspicion and are merely in possession of information that the police or prosecutors want.

While the warrants are ostensibly meant to seek the truth and quicken the search for justice, court papers recently filed in a federal lawsuit claim that the Queens district attorney’s office misused a warrant while pursuing a prosecution — a practice that, according to the papers, prosecutors in both Brooklyn and Manhattan have also engaged in occasionally in the last several years.

A sort of legal fail-safe, material witness warrants, which must be signed by judges, are designed to be used in extraordinary circumstances — say, when prosecutors are concerned that a witness might flee or resists taking the stand. Strict rules govern their use: material witnesses can be arrested on a warrant only if they first ignore an order to appear in court, and those detained are required to be presented to a judge and provided with a lawyer. Hearings are supposed to be held to determine what these witnesses know and why they are reluctant to reveal it.

But the court papers say that does not always happen and that the mishandling of the warrants has led to dire consequences for the witnesses themselves, some of whom have been unlawfully held in custody for having done no more than attracted the attention of investigators. The court papers also claim that the misuse of the warrants has harmed defendants, as witnesses compelled by them to testify have at times been coerced into offering false accounts in court.

A new traffic light has gone up at the intersection of 43rd Avenue and 47th Street, in response to complaints about reckless drivers speeding down 43rd Avenue putting pedestrians at risk.

The intersection is just a block away from Little Friends Pre-K, a 56-seat school that small children and their parents walk to. It is also an intersection used by many pedestrians who walk to the 46th Street train station.

To mark the installation, Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, representatives of the Department of Transportation and pre-school children turned out to celebrate.

All of this development has avoided upgrading the municipal infrastructure which the new population would require – cops, fire department, sewerage, hospitals, schools. If you’re walking through one of the glorious new waterfront parks in Hunters Point, and you suddenly grab at your chest, where the FDNY ambulance will take you is either Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, the Mount Sinai hospital on Crescent street in Astoria, or out to Elmhurst hospital. FDNY’s fire fighting apparatus in western Queens was designed for industrial fires, and the 108th precinct is housed in a tiny 19th century building which still has horse stables. The sewer plant servicing this gargantuan residential population was opened by Fiorella LaGuardia in 1936. Our transit needs far outweigh current capability. There are not enough school desks. Don’t get me started on the environmental legacy of all that industry which used to be here. The buildings being erected in the photos in today’s posts are on the site of a former chemical factory in Queens Plaza, for instance.

Simply put, “gentrification” is nothing new in Western Queens and it’s been going on since at least the Civil War. The “G bomb” has already been dropped, and it has gone off. A looming infrastructure crisis is just beginning.

Allies of Hiram Monserrate have lost a last-minute bid to have a polling site reestablished for the Democratic primary in LeFrak City in Queens, where the convicted felon enjoys broad support.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Andrea Masley ruled earlier this week that it was too late for her to move a polling site back to LeFrak, where New Yorkers had cast their votes for 50 years.

But she criticized the Board of Elections for moving the voting site from LeFrak to two other locations outside of the housing complex, writing that "moving poll sites is no joke" and that the timing of the change had not yet been properly explained.

"This court is confounded by the BOE's decision to move 6,071 voters to two new voting sites," Masley wrote.

In May, the Board of Elections announced new sites three-quarters of a mile and one-third of a mile away from the LeFrak complex, saying the original site did not meet Americans With Disabilities Act standards.

Friday, September 8, 2017

Samintra Boodram from Queens went to see the apartment at 117-20 Lincoln St. in South Ozone Park, Queens.

It’s in a multi-family house. She says a man who identified himself as Tony Bacchus, the landlord, showed her the three-bedroom unit.

It was obvious people were living in the apartment. The landlord told her the tenants lease was nearly up and urged her to put down a $2,000 security deposit. She did. A week later he asked for another $2,000 in cash for the first month’s rent. She paid that, too.

Sumintra says the landlord told her she could move in August 17, after he had fixed up the apartment. But she says he then stopped answering her calls and emails. She went to the house and says she heard voices inside the apartment, but no one would open the door.

“I called the police and the neighbors came out. Everybody was saying how he had been doing this to a lot of people,” says Sumintra.

In 2013, you ran on reducing income inequality. Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools?

What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be. I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development.

I’ll give you an example. I was down one day on Varick Street, somewhere close to Canal, and there was a big sign out front of a new condo saying, “Units start at $2 million.” And that just drives people stark raving mad in this city, because that kind of development is clearly not for everyday people. It’s almost like it’s being flaunted. Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That’s a world I’d love to see, and I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love to have the New Deal back, on one level. They’d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Holden fired off an angry letters to supporters after the Crowley campaign sent out literature questioning his allegiance to the Democratic Party and questioning his values. He called her a do-nothing career politician attempting to discredit him to distract voters from her own ineffective representation and he blamed the Queens Machine for smearing him.

“The mailers came from my campaign, not the Democratic Machine,” Crowley said. “He’s much more aligned with the party of Donald Trump than with the party I identify with. His values are not aligned with our party and he shouldn’t even be running in this primary. He should be running as a conservati­ve.”

Holden has ripped Crowley for years in the pages of the Juniper Berry, along with her cousin, U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), the head of the Queens Democratic organization.

“I don’t even know what he’s talking about when he talks about the Machine,” the councilwoman said. “I’m proud to be a Democrat. I’m proud of Democratic values. He’s not. He’s not fooling me and I want to make sure that people who don’t know about him get to know how dangerous he is. How he doesn’t have any of the values that the Democratic Party stands for and I’m proud of the party. I identify with its values. It means something.”

Holden has been a registered Democrat for 44 years and a union member for 42 years.

“What is a good Democrat, one that hates Republicans?” Holden said in an interview with the TimesLedger staffers. “Don’t we have enough of that in this country? I think you work with both parties. I can work with anyone who is pro-community. She’s gone to the extreme left and I’m a moderate Democrat, conservative on some things and progressive on others. I was never a part of a political club being labeled a Democrat or a Republican. I’m a civic guy, a community guy. You have to work with both parties for the good of the community. I know I can do a better job than her, I know it. I work everyday with people who couldn’t get help from Crowley’s office.”

As president of the powerful Juniper Park Civic Association for 25 years, Holden has worked with both parties to accomplish vital projects and deliver services to the community. He has criticized Crowley and the so-called Democratic Machine, for years in the organization’s Juniper Berry quarterly magazine.

“I’ll always say it the way I see it,” Holden said. “I was never afraid of an elected official. They work for us. They’re public servants and I don’t have to kiss their ring. When you do something bad, I’ll turn on you.”

“She opted out of the matching fund program, which means she’s taking big money from special interests, and that’s when they control you,” Holden said. “My allegiance will be to the constituents and not the special interests that funded me.”

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

To some, the two-story Great Sunshine Day Care building under construction on 67th Avenue and 172nd Street is not a bright idea.

The suburban Flushing intersection is one block from PS 173’s playground and two from the school itself by the western edge of Fresh Meadows. Some in that neighborhood think that the combination of traffic from the school and the day care center, at their worst times, will together be problematic.

Fresh Meadows resident Bill Anello told the Chronicle that traffic from the school causes cars to be “double-parked in the morning and triple-parked all along 67th Avenue.”

Moreover, Anello says that the area already has plenty of day care centers. And he added that there is another one planned at the former Carol School Supply building.

According to Anello, the day care center will serve 290 kids. It is not clear where he heard that — when the Chronicle followed up, he did not immediately respond.

Michael Tang, a lawyer who has discussed the day care plan with community members, did not immediately respond when the Chronicle asked how many people — employees or children — would be at the business.

Spotted a piece of Queens Crap in your community?

Please note

Italicized passages and many of the photos come from other websites. The links to these websites are provided within the posts.

Why your neighborhood is full of Queens Crap

"The difference between dishonest and honest graft: for dishonest graft one worked solely for one's own interests, while for honest graft one pursued the interests of one's party, one's state, and one's personal interests all together." - George Washington Plunkitt

Sites that kick ass:

The above organizations are recognized by Queens Crap as being beneficial to the city as a whole, by fighting to preserve the history and character of our neighborhoods. They are not connected to this website and the opinions presented here do not necessarily represent the positions of these organizations.

The comments left by posters to this site do not necessarily represent the views of the blogger or webmaster.